PFLAG April Newsletter

7/21/2019 PFLAG April Newsletter

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Page 1 PFLAG Buffalo/Niagara

PFLAG Buffalo-Niagara

Parents, Families, Friends and Allies United with LGBTQ

People

PO Box 617Buffalo, NY 14207

716-883-0384

[email protected]

www.facebook.com/pflag.niagara

April Sharing Meeting

Sunday, April 19; 2:30-5:00

The sharing meetings are held at Kenilworth United Church of Christ, 45 Dalton Drive, Tonawanda 14223,

from 2:30-5:00. Newcomers and anyone interested will be offered the option of meeting privately with a PFLAGparent. Our monthly meetings are in the library, which is near the parking lot entrance. The facility ishandicapped accessible. New Parents Meetings are scheduled as needed at a location convenient to thoseinvolved. These self-help one-on-one meetings deal with the concerns of parents and family members whohave recently learned that a loved one is gay._______________________________________________________________________________________________

We meet because we have learned that someone very close to us is Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, or Transgendered. We try

to help one another deal with this info rmat ion in a pos it ive manner. Althoug h we do not agree at al l t imes, we try to be

understanding . We of fer help to those wh o seek it , but do n ot force ourselves on o thers. We str ive to maintain

anonym ity whi le shar ing on a level that is comfo rtable for al l of us. We encourage al l to at tend meet ings for their own

benef i t as wel l as that of the group. I t is our hope that when each of us reaches a point o f understanding and

acceptance, we real ize that this is when o thers need us the mos t .
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.facebook.com/pflag.niagarahttp://www.facebook.com/pflag.niagarahttp://www.facebook.com/pflag.niagaramailto:[email protected]


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April 2015 Page 2

ALAN TURING, GRAHAM MOORE, AND STAYING WEIRD

By Bryan Ball, reprinted with permission from [email protected]

My favorite moment of this yearsAcademy Awards came late in the broadcast. Throughout the

night, social commentary had been upstaging staged jokes, beginning with host Neil Patrick

Harris' opening laugh had at the Academy's expense for largely snubbing the Martin Luther

King Jr-centered "Selma" film. As film after film I hadnt seen wonawards, I began to notice

the elephant in the room.

On a night when the Oscars were concerning themselves with vital social issues like equal pay

for women, the legacy of Dr. King, and the diseases of ALS and Alzheimer's, I felt a shadow

over the room that loomed large. Casting that shadow was Alan Turing, a major figure in

lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) history, whose biopic, "The Imitation Game,"

had been nominated multiple times.

As the night wore on, it seemed that Mr. Turing-- a man who played a large part in the winning

of the Second World War and was later driven by the government he aided to suicide because

he was gay-- would never take the stage. A man who has been, up until very recently,

victimized by and denied his rightful place in history, would have his legacy

passed over by Hollywood, this night, as well.

And then Graham Moore won the Oscar for writing the films screenplay. A win, finally. Andwhat a win he made it become. In what seemed a burst of destined, anxious inspiration,

Graham immediately got the thanking of the film's cast and crew out of the way, and began to

talk about the fact that Alan Turing had never been given so public and visible a platform as his

own Oscar win had given him that moment.

The gravity of where, how and why he was standing where he was could be clearly seen on the

screenwriters face. Graham wasted no time. When I was 16 years old I tried to kill myself

because I felt weird and I felt different and I felt like I did not belong, he said. I would like for

this moment to be for that kid out there who feels like shes weird or different or she doesnt fitin anywhere. Yes you do. I promise you do. You do. Stay weird. Stay different. And then when

its your turn and you are standing on the stage, please pass the same message to the next

person who comes along.In those few words, the man who put words into Alan Turings

mouth had Alan Touring put words into his.

Alan never could have delivered his message, but it is one he should have received from his

world. To consider Moores acceptance speech as only about LGBT people is short-sighted, just


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as it is to consider his speech non-inclusive of LGBT people because he never used the term

LGBT. Because Alan Turing represents a great many peopleand not all (but many) of them

LGBT. Alan was born in the world at a time when his different nature, his weirdness, was

shunned. This smart, intellectual, brooding, awkward, gay loner. He found great success in the

world, for which he was never fully acknowledged in his lifetime. And the world he was born

into killed him.

The very government he worked for to help end a war prosecuted him for being who he was,

inflicted a form of torture on him, and drove him to kill himself. While the genocide the Nazi

government inflicted on the world compares to no other, the irony that lies in Alan working for

a government, to end a war with a government that was persecuting and murdering its

citizens, only to be driven to death by his own government for being who he was, is

undeniable.

And Alan was certainly not the only one. For all the progress weve made in the world on civil

rights, Alan Turing is still being born into the world, all throughout the world. And whether

those young people find themselves in New York State, Uganda or Russia, there are

governmentsand peoplewho do not understand or respect them, and deny them the dignity

with which all people should be given to live their lives.

Graham Moore knew this, and that he himself had been an Alan Turingone who had been

able to make it farther personally into the world than Alan ever could, one whos life was able

to be saved. And he used his moment on the literal worlds stage to reach out to all the Alan

Turings of the world who need to know they matter, and what makes them unique is what

deserves to be used in the world, to end wars and make art and live lives and perform anything

in between. To be saved. Anyone who is gay, transgender, lesbian, bisexual, smart, nerdy, a

woman, African-American, Hispanic, red-haired, tall, short, interested in computers or numbers

or scienceanyone who has ever been considered as the other by a majority, and persecuted

for that reason.

These people, the people of the world Harvey Milk famously dubbed the Us-es, are everyone

Alan Turing represents. And they deserve to be treated with the dignity and legal equality that

Alan himself was never afforded. And in his few short words, directed at the young Alans of the

world, Graham Moore could not have more directly or eloquently given Mr. Turings legacy to

them.


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TIPS FOR TEACHERS: ALLY YOURSELF WITH LGBT STUDENTS

Teachingtolerance.org

Whether or not you know their identity, you can be certain that you are teaching LGBT

students. Visible support and small acts of kindness go a long way in helping these youth feel

safer and find harmony at school. Not only does fulfilling the role of ally let them know they are

not alone, it models for other students that gay and transgender classmates are their peers,

worthy of respect and acceptance. More often than not, bullies operate with the tacit approval

of the school community.

Here are six LGBT-friendly actions teachers and school staff can take to turn their classroom

and hallways into Safe Zones.

1. Post a SafeZonesignin your classroom and office. It signals to LGBT youth that youve

got their backs.

2. Confront homophobic remarks, including slights and slurs that you overhear. Many

students use terms like fag, dyke and thats so gay without thinking. Let them know in no

uncertain terms that such speech is unacceptable.

3. Seek opportunitiesto incorporate the contributions of LGBT people in science, history,

athletics and the arts into your curriculum.

4. Dontassume any student is gayor not gay. If LGBT students do confide in you, thank

them for their trust. Follow the students lead about what else you should do. Perhaps sharing

this information is enough at this point. But if the student needs additional support, you can

provide invaluable help by being versed in the LGBT-competent resources available in your

school, district and community.

5. Organize or encouragedistrict administrators to arrange an in-service with a qualified

youth advocate about how to create a safer school for LGBT students.

6. If your school has a Gay-Straight Alliance, volunteer to act as its faculty advisor, orcontribute in other ways.

Parents, consider how you can encourage your childrens schools and teachers to incorporate the above. In the

workplace, these can be used or modified as needed. PFLAG Buffalo-Niagara


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INTERVIEW WITH RESEARCHER AND AUTHOR, DR. ABBIE GOLDBERG

By Kathy Belge, www.lesbianlife.about.com

Dr Abbie Goldberg is the author ofLesbian and Gay Parents and Their Children: Research

on the Family Life Cyclepublished by The American Psychological Association. She is an

assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Clark University. Her book is an

overview of the many studies that have been done on gay and lesbian families and she

hopes it will be used to influence public policy.

Lesbian Life: First of all, I am very impressed with your book. It seems like there is

nothing you didn't cover.

Dr. Abbie Goldberg:People have said that. Other experts in the field have said they couldn't

think of any studies that I left out.

So, how did you go about research for this book?

The benefit is, I've been doing research for ten years, so I have a pretty good sense of most of

the parenting and family literature related to lesbian and gay families and parenting. Since I've

worked in this area for ten years, I've kept on top of what research is coming out.

What are the key findings of the research?

Well, because the book reviews all of the research, including my own, the fact that it's all in

one place and that we can draw some conclusions is a new thing. Most media coverage will

report on one study. This is taking a much broader scope of the field. What I concluded is what

a lot of the individual studies concluded, but it's a lot heftier when you have 100 studies to

back you up.
http://erclk.about.com/?zi=17/2yjihttp://erclk.about.com/?zi=17/2yjihttp://erclk.about.com/?zi=17/2yjihttp://erclk.about.com/?zi=17/2yjihttp://erclk.about.com/?zi=17/2yji


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Children Raised in LGBT Families

Psychological adjustment of children raised lesbian and gay families is really no different thanchildren in straight families. All the studies, no matter how people did the research found the

same thing, which is that kids are not disadvantaged by being raised in lesbian and gay parent

families. There might even be particular areas where they have strengths, it just depends on

how you look at the research.

Children Raised in Gay & Lesbian Families and Gender Norms

Lesbian and gay parents are less conventional in terms of gender norms, so they're more likely

to encourage their kids to not be limited by their own gender for certain interests, activities,

toys, the way that they dress. Conservative might look at that as a negative thing, gendernorms are important, but I think most of us would say there's something really positive about

little girls of lesbian moms who want to be doctors and lawyers instead of nurses and social

workers. In terms of having higher aspiration for careers.

Are Children Raised in Gay and Lesbian Families More Likely to be Gay?

People always want to know if children are more likely to be gay, and of course there is really

no evidence children are more likely to be gay if they are raised by gay and lesbian parents.

But I have to give the caveat, so what if they were? There's nothing wrong with being gay, so

why do we care?I don't think that's an appropriate index of whether kids are doing okay. Iargue diligently that we need to remove that as an indicator of mental health.

Don't you also point out some studies of children of gay and lesbian parents who feel

a pressure to be straight so there's not the stigma?

There is an added pressure, whereby children of gay and lesbian parents feel that their parents

are okay. They feel like maybe they can't acknowledge the general problems that we all

experience growing up as adolescents. You don't like your parents sometimes. Or you do

drugs. Or you don't do well in school. Kids are very sensitive about those things being

attributed to having gay parents. They feel additionally protective of their parents. In a veryunique way, that I don't necessarily think is to their benefit. I think it's actually detrimental to

their well-being.


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What are some differences between gay and lesbian parents and straight parents

aside from the gender role things?

Yes, there are studies that suggest, maybe not surprisingly, lesbian and gay parents divide uphousework, paid work and child care more evenly. So they're modeling less traditional gender

norms, more egalitarian. There is some evidence that they're less likely to encourage their

children to be conforming. So in terms of their parenting values, they place a lot less value on

their kids being like other kids, where straight parents are more likely to want that for their

children.

Tolerate Differences Better

Children of gay and lesbian parents, there is evidence that they might be more tolerant of

differences in other children. So they are less likely to stigmatize another child based on theirrace or ethnicity or any other perceived difference. Because they grew up knowing what it is

like to be different.

Did you find any difference between gay men parents and lesbian parents?

That's a great question, but there is just not enough data. There are so few studies that have

compared lesbian and gay parents. There are a couple that are coming out right now and they

don't find many differences. But the research is so new. And there is not much research on gay

fathers.

Well, there are less gay fathers, aren't there?

There are, but more than what you might assume. I think itsnow one in five gay male couples

is parenting, compared to one in three female same-sex couples.

One thing I thought I read that I found interesting, was that the extended family was

more involved with same-sex couples.

That's a perfect example of a media report, that I have no idea where they got that

information. If you read the book, I do not say that. What I did find is this, same-sex couplesreport increase in family support across the transition to parenthood. So, where the family was

maybe less supportive of them because they were gay, when they had kids or adopted kids,

their families actually became more supportive. It's not in comparison to straight parents, it's

in comparison to how their families were before, which I think is really important.


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You mention the impact of separation or divorce. How does that impact a child when

one parent might have no legal right?

Well, there is very little research on this and what little is out there suggests that it is obviouslynot good. The legal support is really important. If, for example, the no biological mother is able

to obtain asecond parent adoption,prior to the separation, the chances of her maintaining

contact with the child are much higher. Which is really important. Because with separation or

divorce, even the happiest couples can get really mean.

There are biological mothers who prevent their partners from seeing their children. This is more

likely to happen if the non-biological mother has no legal rights because she can't fight in

court. I've seen this in my research and I've seen it in people that I know.

So when there is a legal relationship with the parents, the outcomes are better forthe children?

We don't know about the children, because no research has looked at the children. But we

know that from research on straight parents, that kids who maintain a relationship with both

parents, that's associated with positive outcomes. We can infer that this is a good thing for

kids. But if you think about it pragmatically, legal non-biological moms are also providing child

support, so that child is also benefitting from having the financial support of both parents,

which again, we know across the board is associated with better outcomes.

What about when one parent has the child and then enters into a relationship, like astep-parent relationship? Did you find any differences between gay and lesbian

parents and straight parents there?

Yeah, there is some really cool research out of the UK on that topic, which I cover in the book.

What's really interesting is that kids tend to have a much easier adjustment when their moms

partner up with women. I think it's related to not seeing that partner as a direct competitor to

the father. It's another woman. So, maybe they feel less conflict. They feel their allegiances are

less challenged when they enter into that relationship with the step mom, as opposed to the

step dad. It's an easier adjustment to another stepmom, as opposed to perceiving a stepfather

as taking the father's place.
http://lesbianlife.about.com/od/families/g/SPAdoption.htmhttp://lesbianlife.about.com/od/families/g/SPAdoption.htm


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Does it matter the age of the children?

I did a lot of interviews with adult children of gay and lesbian parents and it does seem that

there is an easier adjustment when the children are very young, because as the children get

older the values of society tend to be more prominent and they're more likely to internalize

homophobia and heterosexism. So kids whose parents split when they're very young and their

parents partner with someone of the same sex, it's just kind of woven into the fabric of their

lives, where adolescents struggle a bit with fear about what peers are going to think. There's

more of a challenge accepting that. They do ultimately accept it, it's just more of a transition.

You are interested in your book being used by social service agencies and courts and

things like that. Have you heard from any instances where the research from your

book has been used?

Yes, for instance,GLAD contacted me and let me know that they're very excited about the

book and they plan on using it in their efforts regarding marriage. Which is exactly the kind of

thing that I get excited about.

How else are you hoping this information will be used?

I think itsone stop shopping for the research on this topic. Any major organizations - The Task

Force, GLAD, organizations like that will find it useful in the sense that they don't have to go

out and read all the studies. That's really hard for the average consumer. Most people can't get

access to them at the library and who has the time? Court cases are being decided. Judges are

making decisions without reading the data themselves. So this is designed to provide the

average consumer and people involved in this topic.

Did you find any instances where gay and lesbian parents were not as effective as

straight parents?

Not in the traditional sense. They are just as effective parents, their parenting styles are just as

effective. They love their kids just as much. Studies find that they perceive more stigma in the

environment and are more worried about the challenges their kids may face in school. The

challenges of navigating heterosexism. And in some cases not wanting to believe that bullying

and teasing exists. Sometimes parents downplay those kinds of things. I think some parents

don't want to take a good hard look at some of the realities that their child may face because

it's uncomfortable. It's something they don't have control over, which is really hard for parents.

Are there more instances of bullying of kids of gay and lesbian parents?

The research is mixed on that. Some studies find that there is no difference. Some studies find

that there is an elevated chance of teasing and victimization. It's what they're more likely to be

teased about that's different.
http://www.glad.org/http://www.glad.org/


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PFLAG Buffalo-Niagara Board of Directors

Phil Salemi, President Lisbeth Ball, Director

Amy Fularz, Vice President Ann Carrier, Director

Kristian Rickard, Vice President Julie Christiano, DirectorBrian Carrier, Treasurer Julie Lazzaro-Thompson, Director

Michele Perry, Secretary

Please remember to renew your membership to help PFLAG in Buffalo-Niagara!

Is it time to renew your membership? Please do so and PFLAG Buffalo-Niagara thanks you!

Lifetime Membership ................................ $500

BenefactorMembership ....................... $250

Sponsoring Membership ... $100 (Business Card Advertisement ($100 per year)

Supporting Membership .......................... $50

Household Membership . $30

Newsletter Subscription Only... $15

Donations of $50.00 or more can be included in the chapter newsletter with your permission.

Make checks payable to PFLAG Buffalo/Niagara and mail to: P.O. Box 617 Buffalo, NY 14207

PFLAG Buffalo/Niagara is a non-profit 501(c)3 and donationsare tax-deductible.

PFLAG Buffalo-Niagara, is a non-profit, all volunteer, community-based organization

not affiliated with any ethnic, religious, economic or political group. Membership is

open to all. PFLAG membership lists are kept confidential.

We hope you like reading these newsletter articles, we also share current articles on

our Facebook page. Please consider likingus on Facebook and reading articles all

month long atwww.facebook.com/pflag.niagara
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